The idea of a visit to an asteroid on the flexible path was to develop the capability for a HUMAN MARS MISSION. That's where the real science everybody is desperate to gets their hands on is at.

I quite understand your completely justified insistence that not only can there not be any *cough* real *cough* science practiced on Luna today, there could never be any of that there *cough* real *cough* science practiced on Luna ever.

It's simply not there. That's why nobody's "desperate" to get their hands on it.

The idea of a visit to an asteroid on the flexible path was to develop the capability for a HUMAN MARS MISSION. That's where the real science everybody is desperate to gets their hands on is at.

I quite understand your completely justified insistence that not only can there not be any *cough* real *cough* science practiced on Luna today, there could never be any of that there *cough* real *cough* science practiced on Luna ever.

It's simply not there. That's why nobody's "desperate" to get their hands on it.

I never said anything of the sort.

There's plenty of science to be done on Luna. The far side and poles haven't been explored. The Lunar surface has been neglected even by unmanned missions. Can I interest you in another orbiter?

The idea of a visit to an asteroid on the flexible path was to develop the capability for a HUMAN MARS MISSION. That's where the real science everybody is desperate to gets their hands on is at.

I quite understand your completely justified insistence that not only can there not be any *cough* real *cough* science practiced on Luna today, there could never be any of that there *cough* real *cough* science practiced on Luna ever.

It's simply not there. That's why nobody's "desperate" to get their hands on it.

I never said anything of the sort.

There's plenty of science to be done on Luna. The far side and poles haven't been explored. The Lunar surface has been neglected even by unmanned missions. Can I interest you in another orbiter?

I think LRO doing excellent work.Unless there needs to be another orbiter that could support some kind rover operation on the surface, I am not sure what kind orbiter would be needed.Though maybe some kind of follow up on Grail type mission:http://science.time.com/2013/05/30/revealed-the-awesome-explanation-for-the-moons-extra-gravity/I think if some kind of orbiter could find underground cave structures this would quite useful for the Moon and elsewhere. But I don't know if or how this could be done.

"It's still not NASA's job. Their job is science and human spaceflight that does science.

The idea of a visit to an asteroid on the flexible path was to develop the capability for a HUMAN MARS MISSION. That's where the real science everybody is desperate to gets their hands on is at."

There's the crux of so many critics on asteroid retrieval. The Planetary Society, for example, won't lobby for the mission out of fear the science budget could get harmed. Moon first, Mars first, etc all think there's a zero sum game of dollars and "the heist" is the enemy.

If NASA wants to succeed in convincing these partisans to support asteroid retrieval, then the paradigm needs to shift. I believe a Space Act Agreement (SAA) with private industry is essential to political success. Let Planetary Resources or Deep Space Industries add some private money to the table. They can contribute to identifying and characterizing target rocks, add demo mining equipment, and get to pick which type of rock to retrieve.

NASA is about more than science. NASA is also about technology development and opening new frontiers for the economic gain of the United States of America. The NASA budget will grow again if the American people and their Representatives see a return on investment.

1) There's the crux of so many critics on asteroid retrieval. The Planetary Society, for example, won't lobby for the mission out of fear the science budget could get harmed. Moon first, Mars first, etc all think there's a zero sum game of dollars and "the heist" is the enemy.

2) If NASA wants to succeed in convincing these partisans to support asteroid retrieval, then the paradigm needs to shift. ...

3) ... The NASA budget will grow again if the American people and their Representatives see a return on investment.

1) In some ways, I think the various partisan groups are suffering from "live by the sword, die by the sword". They all talk about how the funding pie is finite and how adding a dollar to this slice would remove a dollar from that slice. Whenever they get a chance to write this paradigm into law, they do so. When their political constituency is waxing, they wax on about how important their work is, which is why it got funding. When waning, they whine about how can it be that their work, so important, should not be funded.

2) They keep on presenting intentionally scrubbed budgets in order to maintain funding. Over the decades, it's gotten so messy, that the disinterested observer can only conclude that profit trumps accomplishment. The heist constinues the budgetary scrubbing paradism. Worse, the heist presentation gives no indication whatsoever that they will even need to achieve their ostensible goal. This is the statement by Mr. Gerstenmaier which galls me to the core: That even if they don't grab a rock, the mission is already deemed a success, by virtue, presumably, of the number of PhD's referenced in the paper presentations so far. In fact, by my *cough* analysis *cough*, they propose to bag it when they should be lassoing it.

So yeah, the paradigm will have to change.

3) No question but that with an actual decades old lunar base, now being renovated to add hotel rooms, while the martian base itself is being added to, the budget conversation would be substantially different.

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(Probably the very first LGBT, left-handed, red-haired, Americo-caucasoid-asio-africo handicapped Jewish/Pagan astronaut would have wheeled into the Mars base by now, demonstrating that we are still a great nation. At least as regards the number of squares on our census forms, more than any other nation on Earth. But I digress.)

[/delete]

Alas.

But instead we have an underutilized decade old space station which can't even do a plant experiment and which we can't even get to for the time being. We have a telescope which, while on the ground, can *cough* actually *cough* see farther into space than mankind has ever seen before. We have managed an unmanned sub-orbital flight, with way, way, way more instrumentation than Mercury, using the most technically advanced rocket e-ver. Soon, in merely a decade or so, we will repeat an Apollo mission, demonstrating our leadership to all.

Yikes, tight margins? Not sure, but 12000kg of Xenon plus the solar arrays, engines, and structure is going to be hard to fit on an Atlas 551 no?

Looks like they originally estimated the solar arrays, engines, and structure at 5000 kg ... when they realized they had another 995 kg available from the Atlas, they decided to use it. Sounds reasonable to me.

Mr. Gerstenmaier reviewed the interplanetary trajectory of the planned mission; 12 metric tons of xenon (Hall thruster) will be used to test its capability in terms of duration and impulse. Reaching the object will take 1.84 years and the traverse back to Earth 2.99 years.

<snip>

Responding to a suggestion to use a 2021 cruise mission for the mission, Mr. Gerstenmaier commented that the object cannot be obtained any sooner than 2024. However, HEOMD should be ready to launch to it by 2021. There is a calendar disconnect - this is a feasibility study only, not a mission design.

<much more snippage>

Now, these notes are distressingly gnomic, but I'd tentatively interpret them to mean that the Orion-asteroid rendezvous won't happen until 2024 at the earliest. As the present SLS launch schedule has EM-2 in 2021, EM-3 in 2023 and EM-4 in 2025, it would appear that EM-2, even though "ready" to go to the asteroid, won't have an asteroid to go to. Possibly the same for EM-3, though it might be delayed if an asteroid were indeed on the way.

So what are EM-2 and possibly EM-3 to do? I'd guess trips to DRO to practice for an actual asteroid rendezvous.

P.S.: Another implication is that the SEP asteroid-grabber probably won't launch before 2020, which seems reasonable.

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"I canít tell you which asteroid, but there will be one in 2025," Bolden asserted.

They are looking at two objects. The problem is that it takes a finite amount of time to build a spacecraft and launch it, and Congress seems intent to be inept, so they are having to look at a later and later launch date because the House is trying to cut all funding.

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Chris Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0